Diamond Dirt: Time to grow up, Colby Rasmus

Thursday

Jul 28, 2011 at 12:01 AMJul 28, 2011 at 5:02 AM

Note to Colby Rasmus: Father may know best, but Tony La Russa knows better. If Colby was smart, which he clearly isn’t, he would have had his dad back off. Dads are great for getting baseball advice, but they shouldn’t push the envelope like Tony Rasmus did in St. Louis.

Here’s this kid with a lot of baseball talent, a lot of potential, but he just doesn’t want to listen.

We learned that from Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa just hours before Rasmus was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays. According to the Cardinals skipper, Rasmus is “listening to somebody,” but it’s not the St. Louis coaches.

Well that “somebody” La Russa is talking about is Colby’s father, Tony Rasmus.

Several baseball beat writers are reporting that the elder Rasmus has become a bad penny at Busch Stadium, especially after he pitched batting practice to his son after a game. His criticisms of the Cardinals have reached out into social networking and even on a St. Louis sports radio show. Daddy’s opinions even made their way into the mindset of Colby, whose bouts with La Russa became more public last season. The small buzz around the situation lit up Albert Pujols to tell reporters that if anyone doesn’t like the way things are run in the clubhouse, they should leave.

It’s apparently gotten to be too much to handle, so Colby is off to Toronto to be a Blue Jay. And in return the Cards get pitchers Edwin Jackson, Octavio Dotel, Marc Rzepczynski and outfielder Corey Patterson. Not a bad return for a nuisance.

What on Earth was Colby thinking by not listening to his coaches? Is he a complete idiot? If he’s not careful he’s going to be on an MLB Network countdown show that displays the top players who could have had a great career if they weren’t thick-skulled.

Last time I checked, Tony Rasmus was never a major leaguer. But the Cardinals coaching staff members were. Perhaps that’s why they’re major league coaches today.

The Associate Press reported Wednesday afternoon that part of the problem with Colby was he’d rather work with his dad than Cardinals hitting coach Mark McGwire.

Now I’ve criticized Big Mac before because I don’t find his hitting style from his playing days to be the best approach to swinging a bat. However, the man was one of the best hitters in baseball for years. And steroids aside, you have to have excellent hand and eye coordination just to make contact with the ball and that’s something we can all agree, McGwire had.

I support all ballplayers who wants to do things their own individual way, but I won’t support anyone who won’t at least listen and consider the other side of the coin.

Thanks to Papa Rasmus’ work, Colby burnt his bridges and now enters Ontario with a bad reputation of having “stage-parent.”

That’s al Tony Rasmus is, a “stage-parenting” fool who didn’t make it to the major leagues, bounced around the minors, and is now trying to live through his two kids. Colby’s brother, Cory Rasmus is also in the Cardinals system.

If Colby was smart, which he clearly isn’t, he would have had his dad back off. Dads are great for getting baseball advice, but they shouldn’t push the envelope like Tony Rasmus did in St. Louis. Colby should have just asked for his father’s support and leave it at that, but instead he didn’t and now his ignorance toward the Cardinals and La Russa will always be embedded into his biography. If there’s one ever written, that is. Right now the title is “Daddy said so” but if Colby’s able to fix his image and put his dad off to the side and listen to his Blue Jay coaches, he could very well bust out of the reputation that currently has him labeled a difficult person to manage.